Author
Topic: ...and now Smugmug. (Read 53510 times)

OK. I am "converted." Bear in mind that I am not a professional and merely use the site to share stuff with friends. I've still got tons of galleries to load. This is just one thing to add to my list......

You can easily have dueling identities on one site, as long as you build it in such a way that the links you build stay within your current identity. You could manage all the content for both identities through one organizer.

.Well, I finally figured out the copyright notice thing, at least in a way that works for me. You can turn off the standard footer and that takes all copyright notice out of the picture. Still not best, but at least it doesn't assign it to Smugmug.

I updated to a Smugmug design today -- so, as others have gone public....

Sure, if you have a wide gamut monitor set to wide gamut mode and use say Firefox browser you should see that this image (hosted by Zenfolio where they do not allow wide gamut, nor did (does?) Smugmug) looks like the reds are clipped and many of the leaves are like a single shade without much detail since many of the shades on the red leaves were too intense for the sRGB gamut:

so it looks a bit duller and less detailed than say this one (hosted by Flickr where they allow wide gamut) where the colors of leaves fit inside the ProphotoRGB gamut and inside the native gamut of most wide gamut monitors:

And same for this pair where first it is clipped to sRGB by Zenfolio:

And then allowed to be seen in full glory in wide gamut on Flickr for the times you want that and trust the viewer and/or tell them how to handle non sRGB images:

(If you don't have a wide gamut gallery you won't be able to tell what I am talking about since by definition you can't see any colors beyond sRGB on it. So they will look the same regardless of the host (unless you use Chrome which has no color-management and then the Flickr ones will looks dull and ugly). On a wide gamut monitor if you use IE it automatically converts all images to sRGB and then ignores the monitor profile so IE displays ANY and ALL on the web from text to colors to images of any gamut WRONG on a wide gamut monitor in wide gamut mode, they all look radioactive. I don't think anyone ever used IE if they are running in wide gamut mode. It does makes wide gamut hosted images look reasonably fine on a regular monitor though, basically every browser at least does that these days other than Chrome (the single worst browser for photo lovers to use). But even on a regular monitor IE doesn't really get ANY images correct unless you can a fancy monitor with full 3D internal LUT and calibration since it ignores monitor profiles and doesn't make any corrects for errors in your monitor and it doesn't remap tone responses (for instance many people calibrate their monitor to gamma 2.2 but sRGB images don't actually use gamma 2.2 but something special it is close to gamma 2.2 but different, so if you use IE to view images on a monitor that has been calibrated to gamma 2.2 you will see crushed dark tones and slightly overblown contrast and potentially slightly overblown saturation and highlight curves will be slightly off too so nothing will look quite like it did when the person was editing the photo in Photoshop, which is fully color-managed and compensates for tone curve differences).)

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2. you can now quickly clone galleries without having to one by one duplicate each photos and then grab each duplicate over?

Not currently, but I will put it in as a Feature Request

That would be nice to have, back when I used smugmug I put in the request, a few years ago at this point I think, and nothing ever came of it.

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3. or do stuff like in zenfolio where you can upload a gallery and then re-use any of the photos, maintaining their captions and everything in multiple collections instantly (so you could say upload a master gallery of say all decent photos from a hike and then make a collection that just contains the very best few shots and then maybe another where you give people PW access to full size originals or then re-use some in other collection that is maybe best shots from a certain state or whatnot?)Sounds like Smart Galleries is what you are looking for http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93308-what-are-smart-galleries-gather-photos-based-on-keywords-

Well that isn't quite what I mean, but I suppose you could use smart galleries to mimic it and use that to do it.

I guess you could add as a keyboard "best" to each of the best images contained in a completest gallery and then add a rule to draw images from that gallery having keyword best.

Although one issue I see is that it says you are allowed only five rules and what if you wanted to make a best of gallery that draw from a whole bunch of different galleries, if each gallery counts as rule and searching for keyword best is a rule I'd think you could only draw from max four different galleries? If so that would be very limiting. But I didn't read that over carefully yet, just an ultra quick peek, and maybe it wouldn't end up limited in that fashion and maybe draw from gallery so and so is only one rule and it can have an unlimited list of names for "so and so". if so then yeah I guess smart galleries would do it.

I'm OVER the new SmugMug and this is the last straw. I can't delete a custom URL to reuse it, despite having deleted the category using it. I tried to send an email and this is what I received. I finally got my site halfway decent and then they raised prices and unveiled this "New" crap. I haven't been able to rebuild my site worth a damn. I'm done with them.

I'm sorry to rant about them, it just seems that they have made converting an old, customized site, into one of their new sites so much more difficult than it should be. I'm just really frustrated because I have been trying to do this since they unveiled the new look and my patience has worn very thin.

While I understand the desire to see a wide gamut image doesn't this create a problem for clients who lack the appropriate monitor setting and browser?

So long as they have the proper browser it wouldn't look any worse for them than if it had been in sRGB to begin with. And i'm not saying you have to post everything in wide gamut, but we sure as heck should have the option to create some wide gamut galleries if we want to for those that don't use a terrible browser and/or have a wide gamut monitor.

it just seems that they have made converting an old, customized site, into one of their new sites so much more difficult than it should be. I'm just really frustrated because I have been trying to do this since they unveiled the new look and my patience has worn very thin.

+1 ... I've been using Smugmug for about year (I think), but when they changed it to the new version, everything seems to be that much more difficult ... still trying to get my head around to get the look I want ... otherwise, I do like Smugmug.

it just seems that they have made converting an old, customized site, into one of their new sites so much more difficult than it should be. I'm just really frustrated because I have been trying to do this since they unveiled the new look and my patience has worn very thin.

+1 ... I've been using Smugmug for about year (I think), but when they changed it to the new version, everything seems to be that much more difficult ... still trying to get my head around to get the look I want ... otherwise, I do like Smugmug.

I'm glad I'm not the only one. It seems that everything I did to customize my old site is now screwing up my ability to create a new one. I have a custom gallery with a URL (/books) and even though I've deleted it, it won't let me create a page. Also, I despise square thumbnails, but they love them so much that it looks like I have to go to each gallery to change them to rectangular. It just seems that they want everyone to choose from one of the 10 or so cookie-cutter designs and if you don't like them, it will take hours to customize it. I don't like any of their designs. And then as I posted above, as soon as I type out a lengthy email asking for help, the email fails to go through and I have lost the entire message I typed up. If I didn't have thousands of photos up there, I'd switch. But now it looks like I'm going to have to waste at least 2-3 solid days re-doing my site unless I pay one of their "customizers" which I'm beginning to think is part of the game.